Dispatches

Photography

Papping celebs? It's child's play

Hollywood now has child paparazzi to photograph its child stars - 15-year-old Blaine Hewison-Jones and best friend Austin Visschedyk. The pair started a picture agency called Pint-Sized Paparazzi to take snaps of famous people around star-filled West Hollywood.

"We live just by Sunset Plaza," says Blaine's dad Robert Hewison. "We went to get some food the other day and he got three exclusives - Jaime Pressly, Zac Efron and Janeane Garofalo. He was always pretty fascinated with celebrity."

That fascination, and a high demand for celebrity pictures, means that Hewison-Jones is now saving towards buying a Porsche (for when he can drive next year) and is just about to sign a deal for a reality show based on his and Visschedyk's adventures.

Reactions to the two vary. "You are so young!" said Lady Victoria Hervey on being papped by the pair. "You should be in bed. Where are your parents?" Other stars take a less jovial view, and are perplexed by the pint-sized photographers.

"What's wrong with this town?" asked Rose McGowan, the star of Tarantino's Grindhouse. "This is so wrong!"

Being teenagers does give them some advantages - celebrities will sometimes stop and pose for them because they're different to the other 20 photographers baying for shots. "I get to talk to the celebrities, maybe become friends," says Blaine, "they give me a look over the shoulder or something."

The pair have sold shots to the likes of the New York Daily News, OK! magazine and celeb-website TMZ.com (who said the picture they bought from Austin, of Paris Hilton acolyte Kim Kardashian, was one of the best they'd ever seen).

They must also, of course, find time for school. Both snappers study mostly at home - they attend once a week on a Thursday to pick up their work for the week, and drop off the work they've completed.

While Blaine and his father both emphasise that the other photographers have been very nice to them, even teaching the kids how best to get a shot, how to observe boundaries and use their cameras better, the paparazzi world is not known for being overly friendly.

"It's a very competitive market and there are media scrums," says Gary Morgan, CEO of competing pap agency Splashnewsonline.com. "There are a lot of photographers trying to get a picture and fights will break out." Morgan, whose agency hires mainly ex-British press photographers, thinks the game has become much more rough recently.

So is this a place for children? "Yes and no," says Hewison. "It's less vicious than it's portrayed, these are pretty normal guys. But there is a lot of money to be made and that's what makes some push the boundaries."Ravi Somaiya

Legal

Openness and the reporting of deaths

Thanks to a New York medical examiner we now know precisely how Heath Ledger died. Just two weeks after he was found in his New York apartment, we know that his death was a result of the "acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine".

Try getting that kind of information when a death is being investigated in the UK. At best, a reporter might be given a curt "no suspicious circumstances". At worst, the media are obstructed from reporting deaths.

Curbs on the reporting of inquests in the coroners bill currently going through parliament, which includes provisions to allow coroners to order anonymity of the deceased in some cases, were abandoned by Gordon Brown last year. But now new threats to the openness of inquests have emerged in counter-terrorism legislation.

Secrecy at inquests in the UK, whether legally sanctioned or not, is something reporters have had to deal with for some time. Compare the openness surrounding Ledger's death with that of Holby City actor Laura Sadler, in 2003. The only evidence at her inquest was documentary, no witnesses were called, the media were not informed of the hearing (despite widespread coverage of her death) and an accidental death verdict was recorded. Subsequent inquiries by journalists revealed post-mortem tests had found traces of alcohol, cocaine and diazepam in her body.

Where national security is concerned, though, even greater secrecy is possible. The counter-terrorism bill contains clauses that allow for secrecy where evidence would jeopardise national security or the UK's relations with another country, or where it would be "otherwise in the public interest".

It also allows for inquests to be heard without a jury on the direction of the home secretary, who could also appoint a specific coroner to the case. Inquest, an organisation which provides a free legal and advice service to the bereaved, has serious concerns about the clauses in the bill that allow for evidence to be heard in secret.

A case of particular concern to Inquest is that of Azelle Rodney, a young man who was shot several times by police on a surveillance operation in 2005, and whose death has still not been investigated by an inquest. Daniel Machover, solicitor for Susan Alexander, Rodney's mother says: "Presented with the problem of what to do with sensitive material that is relevant to the circumstances of how and why a person was killed by a state agent, the government proposes to remove the vital democratic accountable layer of a jury and hide away from the bereaved family crucial evidence about the death." DB· David Banks is co-author of McNae's Essential Law for Journalists and is a media law consultant

TV

Switch on to the Hamas mouse

The Hamas mouse, its successor bee and the new replacement rabbit have already been dissected by Israeli and international media. These fluffy animal characters feature in Tomorrow's Pioneers, a children's programme broadcast by al-Aqsa channel, based in Gaza and otherwise known as Hamas TV. "I'll finish off the Jews and eat them!" says the Bugs Bunny lookalike; "We will take revenge upon the enemies of Allah," declares the Jihadi bee.

Set up as a regional station prior to the Palestinian elections in January 2006, al-Aqsa TV now airs on a satellite slot. If audience call-ins and internet chats about the station can be used as a gauge, al-Aqsa has picked up a substantial following across the Arabic-speaking world.

But the station also breaks news, according to Zvi Yehezkeli, head of Channel 10's Arab affairs desk. "They were the first to report that the Egyptian police arrested 200 Muslim Brotherhood supporters in the last two weeks," he says.

This combination - hard original news and Islamic propaganda - marks a new breed of Arabic TV cropping up on satellite now that lower costs and greater access have opened up the spectrum. In a market routinely slammed as Arab state-controlled TV, these satellite stations stand to gain audience share with programming that provides a straight-talking alternative. The template is the Hizbollah's al-Manar channel, whose high production values and "station of the resistance" charter have made it a favourite since it first began satellite broadcasting in 2000.

"It's important to realise that these channels are going to mushroom left, right and centre," says one Arab media analyst, based in Qatar. "Islamic TV is the biggest, most business-minded investment in media at the moment."

Last week, Arab countries agreed a regulatory protocol giving them powers to close any channel that "offends leaders or national and religious symbols". In the Palestinian territories, the Fatah-run government media bureau states that the al-Aqsa channel "incites intra-Palestinian division, promotes violence and denounces national figures", and is committed to closing the station.

But some media analysts, while denouncing the channel's violent content, say it reflects the reality of life in Gaza. Mustafa Barghouti, former minister of information for the Palestinian Authority, whose own Fatah party has been attacked on the channel, does not advocate closing it. "Make clear conditions that no channel sends out propaganda that aggravates people against each other," he says. "I believe in making things better, not shutting them down." Rachel Shabi